Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale (CDSE)
Category: Pathways to and Through Postsecondary
This chapter provides an overview of K-12 public school finance in the United States by tracing how funding systems changed over time, how they operate today, and how well they advance core policy goals. Section 2 documents the long-run shift from local property tax finance toward larger state and federal roles, driven by economic crises, legislation, and litigation. Section 3 describes the contemporary funding system, including the distinct roles of state, local, federal, and non-governmental revenues. Section 4 explains the core functions of state finance formulas, focusing on adequacy baselines, required local effort, and incentives for additional local spending. Section 5 reviews the school finance reform movement, showing how litigation moved from equal protection to equity and then to adequacy, with contemporary examples from Washington, California, and Tennessee. Section 6 evaluates school finance in terms of efficiency and equity, reviewing evidence that additional revenues improve achievement and long-run outcomes, generate broader social benefits, affect housing markets, and remain unevenly distributed across places and student groups.
Keywords
School Finance
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/fvhq-ny26
